Agriculture Minister Prof Adolf Mkenda issued the directive when talking to the management of Kilombero Sugar Company Ltd and cane growers during his visit there on Monday.
The minister had an opportunity to listen to a presentation by the Sugar Board of Tanzania (SBT) which showed that if an average of 350,000 tonnes of cane produced by the growers is crashed, then the sugar factory could produce 35,000 tonnes of sugar.
At the moment, the factory is incapable to crash all cane from the growers. “We cannot continue to operate like this by relying on one sugar manufacturer. The issue is farmers continue producing enough cane while the investor cannot purchase them, and meanwhile the country continues to issue sugar importation permits to sugar manufacturing companies instead of working towards increasing the capacity of factories to crash more cane produced by the farmers,” Prof Mkenda said.
He said statistics show that an average of 350,000 tonnes of cane which would have been enough to produce 35,000 tonnes of sugar, have not been purchased by the Kilombero factory.
This means if the factory had the capacity to crash that amount of additional cane, then the country would have to import only 5,000 tonnes of sugar out of 40,000 tonnes which is the current deficit, he explained.
He directed the company management to speed up expansion of the factory to increase its capacity to crash cane from 629,000 tonnes in 2018/2019 to 800,000 tonnes so that all cane produced by small-scale farmers is utilized in sugar production.
He further noted that his ministry is addressing the sugar deficit, praising President John Magufuli’s efforts towards regulating sugar importation in efforts to give local factories opportunity to grow.
“Prior to President Magufuli’s regime, the country used to import 125,000 tonnes of sugar, however, following government’s efforts to regulate importation, we have succeeded to reduce importation to 40,000 tonnes in 2020,” said Prof. Mkenda.
The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Kilombero Sugar Company Limited, Ambassador Ami Mpungwe noted that since its privatization, the company has increased production from 28,000 tonnes of sugar in 1998 to 128,000 tonnes in 2020.
He said the company relies on cane growers in its production, noting that 50 per cent of cane used in production comes from the farmers.
“We rely on cane growers to a great extent for our factories to grow, and upon the completion of the expansion project in 2023, 60 per cent of cane used in our production will come from the cane growers.” The company, he said has started to influence their investors to build a bigger factory that would increase their capacity to crash all cane from the growers, noting that a total of 584bn/- will be needed for the expansion project.
“With the new factory, Kilombero Sugar Company Ltd will have the capacity to crash 420 tonnes of cane per hour compared to the current 220 tonnes per hour,” added Amb. Mpungwe.
